Guitar Maverick Wayne Krantz To Release His First Studio Album In Fifteen Years
Wayne Krantz
The boldly inventive improvisations of guitarist Wayne Krantz have long held a fascination for fans of dynamic, uncompromised music. Ex-Sideman with Steely Dan, Michael Brecker , Billy Cobham and many others, Krantz has focused on live performance for nearly two decades, holding down a residency at New York City’s 55 Bar and documenting the shows via a series of CDs and downloads available exclusively on his website. Now, with Krantz Carlock Lefebvre he is returning to a recording studio to document his own music for the first time in over fifteen years.
Available August 18, 2009, Krantz Carlock Lefebvre features Krantz as one-third of a longstanding trio that also includes virtuoso drummer Keith Carlock (Sting, James Taylor) and bassist extraordinaire Tim Lefebvre (Chris Botti, Uri Caine), which was first convened in 1997. Cut live in the studio and then augmented by overdubs, the result is Krantz’s most personal statement yet, more strongly rooted in composition while still rich with the improvisational nuances that make his live performances so riveting.
The sound of three musicians both in synch and unafraid to challenge one another is captured with gripping immediacy on Krantz Carlock Lefebvre – an album that handily defies categorization.
If Willy Wonka had music piping through his personal quarters at the Chocolate Factory, The Flaming Lips would be in heavy rotation. Their contagious zest for life, underlying political consciousness and general wacky Prankster behavior is rare in today’s minimalist scene. Often times I wonder if Rip Taylor or Wavy Gravy have ever seen or been a part of a Lips show. If either of those unique characters were present, Wayne Coyne‘s hard-working crew would certainly have to bring even more confetti and balloons, if that’s actually possible.
Kicking off their show at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion with an enthusiastic synthesizer laden groove, Melbourne standouts Midnight Juggernauts laid down a backbeat reminiscent of Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie. Featuring voice box effects, heavy metal vamp endings and a Floydian flair for dramatic key changes, the Juggernauts received a warm reception from the now anxiously frothing audience, many dressed appropriately in a variety of costumes. Perhaps having seen the film 24 Hour Party People one too many times, Vincent Vendetta spilled forth youthful exuberance in his operatic vocal turns and ambivalent posturing. Meanwhile drummer Daniel Stricker never relented his pounding on the skins, even when his comrades joined him on an electronic percussion jam center stage. However, Andrew Juggernaut stood out as he led his fellow bandmates with commanding skills on the bass, guitar and synth, taking almost all the solos. Juggernaut and Vendetta occasionally switched instruments, most successfully while sampling some Daft Punk during a “Welcome to the Freakshow” jam. Ending by stating, “This is the third time we’ve shared the stage with The Flaming Lips in as many days,” Wayne Coyne certainly enjoyed his protegees, smiling like a Cheshire cat in the shadows side stage.
While the crowd swelled to near sold out capacity, the master of ceremonies, Wayne Coyne, repeatedly surveyed his band’s equipment, stalking back and forth across the stage while his mates sound-checked their gear. Soon disappearing backstage, their massive lo-fi display screen came to life, depicting a naked, glowing neon woman contorting as an emanating light from between her widely spread legs sent the words “birth” out to the band and crowd. This must be seen to be believed as one by one band members opened a hidden door in the screen and marched down a plank positioned by stagehands. With guitar/synthesizer wizard Steven Drozd positioned behind his rig stage left, Kliph Scurlock sitting atop his drum throne center stage, and the always cool Michael Ivins seated bass in hand off to the right, the crew slowly inflated Wayne’s now customary sphere. Bouncing around the first few rows of the crowd as the Lips opened with “Race for the Prize,” Coyne’s shit-eating grin inside his clear bubble was matched by every fan that pushed his orb back towards the stage.
The show’s energy may have peaked early with Coyne introducing the third tune, “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song,” as an ode to the new President of the U.S. of A. However, throughout the evening The Flaming Lips frontman was extremely cordial and talkative with the rabid crowd, stating the last time they were in Australia was for 2004′s Big Day with Metallica, The Strokes and The Mars Volta, and that they’d be back sooner if “only Australia wasn’t 9,000 fucking miles away.” So true. Dedicated to their “cosmic brother Nick Cave,” “Vein of Stars” had the Worm King and frogs stage left grooving with the Fat Sun and hot bunny dancers stage right in the wild party atmosphere of pure bliss that a Lips concert perpetuates. A ballad version of “Yoshimi… Part 1″ followed closely by Coyne on trumpet for “Taps” mellowed the show with olfactory sensations of dank, possibly brought from their recent stop at Byron Bay’s Splendour in the Grass days before.
Closing their set with a video display of The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart introducing “She Don’t Use Jelly,” this smash tune off 1993′s Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, let the rapturous Tuesday night crowd show they had a little more in their tank. Before capping it all off with “Do You Realize?,” Coyne proclaimed, “The Flaming Lips audience is the greatest ever. You’re not cynical. We throw balloons and confetti and you treat each as a magical piece of fairy dust or squishy magical piece of plastic. Through all this happiness, there are a couple people out there experiencing real sadness in their lives, too, and YOU give them a reason to think that tomorrow will be a brighter day.”
During the extremely brief encore break, Coyne quickly ducked backstage to grab two of the frog people for a marriage proposal center stage, to which the female frog proclaimed, “It’s about time.” After a blowout night of Flaming Lips bombardment, I think many of their Australian fan-base would agree.
The Flaming Lips :: 07.28.09 :: Hordern Pavilion :: Sydney, Australia
Race for the Prize, Silver Trembling Hands, The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, Fight Test, Enthusiasm for Life, Convinced Of The Hex, Mountain Side, Vein Of Stars, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots – Part 1, Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung, Taps, The Wand, She Don’t Use Jelly
Some of the most eagerly-awaited albums of the summer have been delayed, including Mariah Carey’s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Last Train to Paris, and Lil Wayne’s debut rock and roll album, Rebirth.
Memoirs, which was first slated for an August 25 release via Island Def Jam, will now be available September 15. [...]
Whether it’s putting music online for free, working to build an online community, or simply starting a dialogue, the folks seeking out answers are quickly replacing the stagnant ways of old media.
In speech to NAACP, US president emphasises education and raising expectations for new generation
President Obama has made a call for a new liberation struggle to free African-Americans trapped in a web of low expectations and fatalism by the destructive legacy of racism.
In a passionate speech to one of the organisations at the forefront of the civil rights movement, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), on its hundredth anniversary, Obama acknowledged the continuing impact of past wrongs.
But he urged African-Americans to abandon a sense of helplessness and take the initiative as they did during the struggle against segregation.
“No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands, and don’t you forget that. That’s what we have to teach all of our children. No excuses. No excuses,” he said. “We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes – because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalised a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little of ourselves.”
In a speech that offered a direct and forthright assessment of the state of parts of black America that no president before him could have delivered, Obama placed a particular emphasis on African-American parents taking responsibility for their children. That included, he said, ensuring they do better in school by “putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour”.
The president departed from his prepared speech to talk about what he believes would have happened if he had not had an attentive mother who helped keep him on the straight and narrow.
“When I drive through Harlem and I drive through the south side of Chicago and I see young men on the corners, I say there but for the grace of God go I,” he said.
Obama also urged African-American parents to raise their children’s expectations by looking beyond dreams of becoming basketball players or rappers.
“They might think they’ve got a pretty jump shot or a pretty good flow but our kids can’t all aspire to be LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a supreme court justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States of America,” he said.
Obama did not shy away from addressing some of the modern ills that have contributed to keeping many African-Americans in poverty and making life a struggle for others, such as unemployment and the housing crisis. The president said that he was not attempting to suggest that racism and discrimination, and its consequences, no longer matter.
“I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there’s probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today. But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America,” he said. “By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.”
But, Obama said, change in the past had come from people taking the initiative and standing up to injustice.
“We have to say to our children, yes, if you’re African-American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighbourhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not. But that’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school.”
Some parents are just mean!
A couple from Washington are looking for a Lil Wayne impersonator to fool their 16 year old blind son, because the real Wayne can’t make it to his birthday.
Click here to read the Craigslist ad posted a couple days ago.
